Announcement: My new novels should be available from any webseller or can be ordered from any brick and mortar bookstore. Information can be found at www.ancientlight.com. Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy them.
Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.
The four plus one basic rules I employ when writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
All novels have five discrete parts:
1. The initial scene (the beginning)
2. The rising action
3. The climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement
The theme statement of my newest novel, Valeska, is this: An agent of the organization becomes involved with a vampire girl during a mission, she becomes dependent on the agent, and she is redeemed.
Here is my proposed cover for Valeska:
The purpose of a novel is to reveal the protagonist and usually the protagonist's helper, the author needs to place them in circumstance that allows them to reveal themselves. The means can be conversation, exploration, discovery, other's conversation, confession, accidental discovery.
There are three ways to know truth: the scientific method, the historical-witness method, and logic. The three tests used for all documentary evidence in history are: the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test. Let's see how we can use these tests.
The Scarlet Letter is a great example of what I'm talking about because most educated people have read it. Let's turn to a more modern example, Dandelion Wine. I've written before that this is likely the best current novel in the English language. It is an example of a "story-style" novel writer, because it is obvious formed of short stories pieced together with a single theme. The single theme is the changes in the twentieth century world. In this novel, we are shown bits and pieces of the past and present and see how they relate to the now and the future. Bradbury is very careful to keep the novel on a very tense footing that does not let the reader know explicitly the truth from the false. I'd almost rather say the not truth or the not true. Bradbury is trying to get something into the world of his writing that is much more powerful than the empirical, but he approaches it with empirical certainty. For example, the time machine...is an old man who relates his knowledge and impressions of the past, but Bradbury never lets the reader off the hook. The question is always: what is true. The answer isn't given. The truth isn't hidden in the events but in the words and the world.
The machines give it away. The happiness machine from Dandelion Wine is a device, but it brings not just happiness--what does it really bring? The author never fully tells us. The truth is not as important as the feelings and the family. The green machine is an electric car. It represents transportation, but causes its users pain, fear, and suffering. How wonderful it is to live in an empirical world, surrounded by the spiritual...or not. Just what is the creature that haunts Greenville? What kind of truth can be found in an elixir of fresh mountain air that brings respite both physical and spiritual? Bradbury produces magic without magic and sorcery without sorcery. The edge between truth and not truth never lets on what is really true or really false. This is the power of literature.
More tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
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